15 hours ago
(If it looks like I am pregnant in this photo - uh, it's because I am. The photos in these posts are not from my actual days as a student. I apologize for this inaccuracy...)
Note: Since I originally wrote this post, I read the book "The Well-Adjusted Child" by Rachel Gathercole. It is the most thorough work I have read addressing the socialization question that constantly follows discussions of homeschooling. I highly recommend it.
(2016: Please note that this is a series I wrote several years ago as a general overview of my experience as a homeschool student. If you have any questions about homeschooling and my homeschool experience, please comment below, and I would love to address them in future posts. Thanks for reading!)
(2016: Please note that this is a series I wrote several years ago as a general overview of my experience as a homeschool student. If you have any questions about homeschooling and my homeschool experience, please comment below, and I would love to address them in future posts. Thanks for reading!)
As far as academics go, it’s been well documented that homeschoolers do very well on standardized tests (more on that in future posts, but please see the resources at the end of this post for the stats), but when most people bring up concerns about homeschooling, it always revolves around the social aspect. This was an area that the Lord worked out for us in the beginning especially.
Shortly after we started homeschooling we started going to a new church. It was a small church, and there were other kids our age there. The kids were all homeschooled. From the beginning we had a good support group at that church, and I met some wonderful friends there, including my dear friend Hazel who I’ve mentioned before on this blog.
According to the law in our state, when you homeschool you still have to be enrolled with either the local public school or a private umbrella school for homeschoolers. Many families choose the umbrella school option because it’s specifically meant for homeschooled families, and you get a lot more support and access to homeschooling events and resources. My mom enrolled us in an umbrella school for homeschoolers as soon as we started. The umbrella school keeps track of records for homeschoolers and awards them a diploma once they’ve reached all the requirements to graduate, but all the work is still done at home. They also often put together field trips for homeschoolers, and we did many of these field trips growing up.
My mom would later take over that umbrella school, and she ran it successfully for many years; she ran it until we all graduated and she handed it off to someone else. I remember sometimes helping my mom address envelopes for newsletters for all the families who were a part of the school. I also met my dear friend, Erin, through the school when her mom called up my mom for some recommendations.
As far as socializing, we started to realize there were a lot more homeschoolers around than we thought. We started going to a Community Bible Study in our area, and this CBS was unique in that it had a program for all the homeschooled children of the women who attended. So while my mom went to her classes, we all went to ours and met more homeschooled friends. Within a couple years my mom started leading one of the classes, and we got to spend the whole morning there doing our schoolwork with some of the other kids whose moms were leaders. We continued at that Bible study for years, and I met my dear friend Ashley there.
(I realize that I just said “dear friend” three times there, but it’s because to this day I’m still friends with each of these girls and consider them some of my closest friends. They are very dear to me, all three!)
I haven’t really mentioned anything about sports because I was never interested in doing any sports. I’m not athletically gifted, or coordinated. I love that quote in The Princess Diaries where Mia says that she is more of a horse-back riding, rock-climbing girl, and that her "hand-eye coordination is zero". That would be me as well.
My brother, however, did want to play sports, and he was able to participate in all the sports that interested him. He played with Little League Baseball, and when he reached middle school he played with the basketball team at our local public school (you could sign up for sports or other extra-curricular activites at the public school without having to go to any classes there, at least in my state - there are even more options for part-time programs at public school today). He also started on the wrestling team with one of his public-school friends; he was very good at wrestling and continued through high school.
I will say that I went through a stage (*ahem*, puberty) where I sometimes wished I had more of an opportunity to meet boys (there weren’t many that I was interested in, or that were interested in me, at church or CBS). However, in early high school I started with a homeschool youth group that gave me more opportunity to meet people (ie. boys, because that seemed so important back then). I didn’t feel like I was missing out on friendships with boys for long.
I remember sometimes wondering what it would be like to get to see the person you liked every day at school, but you know what? Not seeing my crushes every day didn’t hurt me a bit. Honestly, there was probably ess “boyfriend material” available for me at public school than in the groups I was in as a homeschooler. I was a Christian and wasn’t willing to date anyone who wasn’t, but I am sure that standard would have been challenged in public school, which wouldn’t have been helpful. It probably actually would have been detrimental at that stage of my life.
I never felt deprived when it came to friends. I had my sister and brother who I saw every day, and we became close through the homeschooling years; we were each others’ best friends. I met other friends in many places, and I am still friends with many of my childhood friends today. I didn’t need school to develop friendships, because my mom made sure we had plenty of social opportunities. That’s the key to "socialization" in homeschooling, and I find most mothers are very attentive to providing these opportunities for their kids.
That last year one of the moms in our umbrella school talked with my mom about putting on a homeschool prom. Her daughter wanted to do some sort of dance before she graduated, and I am glad someone organized this because we were able to have a prom. We had a good turnout of homeschoolers from the umbrella school.
None of us really knew how to dance. (Actually, most public high schoolers probably don’t know how to really dance either. I’m joking. Kind of.) We hired a dance teacher and all of us showed up the day before the prom for dance lessons. We had so much fun.
We all came to prom dressed up – very few of us had dates, which actually made it more fun because everyone danced with everyone. No one was a wall-flower; everyone just wanted to have a good time, and we did. Looking back, if I had a choice, I would still choose not to have a date, because it took the pressure off and I got to dance with almost everyone – so there is no looking back on my prom with that guy who I never spoke to again. It is a purely good memory.
At my college graduation.
I didn’t have a graduation ceremony, but I didn’t really miss it, though there are homeschool groups that will do graduation ceremonies for homeschoolers. I walked in my ceremony once I graduated from college, and that was the important one to me.
Are you noticing a trend here? For anything you could possibly miss in public school there is a group somewhere that will provide that for homeschoolers. Except for partying. I don’t think there’s a group that runs that.
(That was a joke, guys, don’t send me e-mails.)
One more post and I’ll wrap this story up! You can read all the posts in this series here:
Resources:
1. The Washington Times, Homeschooling: Outstanding Results On National Tests, August 30, 2009, copyright 2012 Washington Times.
2. Dr. Brian Ray, Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America, National Home Education Research Institute, Salem, OR, 1997.
3. For more information about the above study and other similar studies, read this article: Klicka, Christopher J., Academic Statistics On Homeschooling, October 22, 2004, copyright 2004 HSLDA.
4. Home Schoolers Score Significantly Above National Average, National Center for Home Education Press Release, December 7, 1994.
5. For more details on the above study read this article: Klicka, Christopher J., Homeschool Students Excel In College, September 20, 2006, copyright 2006 HSLDA.
I decided to review "Our Last Great Hope: Awakening The Great Commission" by Ronnie Floyd because the description reminded me of the book "Radical" by David Platt, which I found to be very thought-provoking and inspiring. "Our Last Great Hope" is about what we as churches and individuals can do to work toward spreading the gospel of Jesus to those who haven't heard it - "fulfilling the Great Commission". I was hoping to glean more motivation to do what I can to share the gospel from this book. It did not disappoint me.
You can tell from the outset that Floyd is very passionate about the Great Commission. The first few chapters seemed to be directed more at what churches can do to help further the gospel, and I was afraid I wasn't going to get much practical application for myself since I'm not a church leader. But about halfway through the book Floyd starts focusing more on changes that individuals can make to more effectively reach people for the Lord. I loved the section on evangelizing our children, and the chapters on "talking Jesus more" and reevaluating finances to do more for God's Kingdom were challenging and offered just what I was looking for when I picked up this book in the first place.
One thing that bothered me at the outset was that I felt Floyd was focusing so much on how we haven't "fulfilled the Great Commission" in the sense that there are still people who haven't heard about Jesus. It was almost as if he was discounting all the work and energy some of the great Christians in history have put forth to bring people to Christ and saying it wasn't good enough.
As I continues reading, however, I understood more of what he meant - he's viewing the Great Commission more as a measurable goal (ie. every person on earth hearing about Jesus), as opposed to an ongoing work, which is how I always viewed it before. He speaks throughout the book about missionaries in church history as examples to be followed, so it became apparent as I read more that he was not discounting their work as I thought in the beginning.
I found myself trying to think of ways to save money to offer more to mission work, ways that I can get involved in spreading the gospel, and I was motivated to pray more for missionaries and those who don't know Jesus. Any book that gets me thinking more along those lines is very worth reading. I'd recommend this book to any Christians who are looking for some inspiration to get more involved in obeying Jesus last command to us to "go make disciples of all nations . . .".
Note: I received this book from BookSneeze for free in exchange for this review. This is my honest opinion.
Read the official book description here.
You can tell from the outset that Floyd is very passionate about the Great Commission. The first few chapters seemed to be directed more at what churches can do to help further the gospel, and I was afraid I wasn't going to get much practical application for myself since I'm not a church leader. But about halfway through the book Floyd starts focusing more on changes that individuals can make to more effectively reach people for the Lord. I loved the section on evangelizing our children, and the chapters on "talking Jesus more" and reevaluating finances to do more for God's Kingdom were challenging and offered just what I was looking for when I picked up this book in the first place.
One thing that bothered me at the outset was that I felt Floyd was focusing so much on how we haven't "fulfilled the Great Commission" in the sense that there are still people who haven't heard about Jesus. It was almost as if he was discounting all the work and energy some of the great Christians in history have put forth to bring people to Christ and saying it wasn't good enough.
As I continues reading, however, I understood more of what he meant - he's viewing the Great Commission more as a measurable goal (ie. every person on earth hearing about Jesus), as opposed to an ongoing work, which is how I always viewed it before. He speaks throughout the book about missionaries in church history as examples to be followed, so it became apparent as I read more that he was not discounting their work as I thought in the beginning.
I found myself trying to think of ways to save money to offer more to mission work, ways that I can get involved in spreading the gospel, and I was motivated to pray more for missionaries and those who don't know Jesus. Any book that gets me thinking more along those lines is very worth reading. I'd recommend this book to any Christians who are looking for some inspiration to get more involved in obeying Jesus last command to us to "go make disciples of all nations . . .".
Note: I received this book from BookSneeze for free in exchange for this review. This is my honest opinion.
Read the official book description here.
(2016: Please note that this is a series I wrote several years ago as a general overview of my experience as a homeschool student. If you have any questions about homeschooling and my homeschool experience, please comment below, and I would love to address them in future posts. Thanks for reading!)
That first day of homeschooling I remember being excited that I didn’t have to go to school! But I quickly started feeling overwhelmed as I sat downstairs with my fourth-grade English book. My mom really did her research and got us some great homeschool curriculum, but as I sat down to the first lesson, I didn’t know what half the terms in the chapter meant.
I wasn’t a poor student in public school. I was one of the top students in my class. I was very good at reading; in the second grade I was reading at the eighth grade level, and my third grade teacher wanted me to consider competing to enter the National Spelling Bee. But this English book had me stumped.
Looking back at it now, I wonder if I would have had as much trouble if I had been using that same homeschool curriculum for the first three grades. It’s hard to say, but if that was fourth-grade level English, the public school system had not prepared me to even know what I was looking at; and like I said, I was a good student.
I came upstairs not even knowing where to start ( I believe there was some crying involved), and my mom sat the three of us down and went through our lessons with us. It made sense then, and I remember our lessons going more smoothly after that.
I was a very self-motivated student, and over the years I developed my method for studying, which mainly involved me sitting down with my school books and learning the material myself. I learn best from reading and studying by myself, so it was very easy for me to thrive educationally at home.
My brother and sister have a different learning-style than mine, and often my mom would sit down and go through their lessons with them, but they also learned how to study by themselves and they did well.
Everyone always wonders about test-taking when homeschooling, but honestly it was just like taking a test in public school. We’d study, then sit down somewhere and take the test then my mom would grade our work. People always suggest that parents would go too easy on grading tests or papers, but if you were homeschooling your kids, would you go easy on them? Most homeschool parents are very concerned with making sure their children get a proper education, and they aren't going to let them skate through without actually learning something. There is something to be said for a teacher (parent) being in charge of a child's education from start to finish. The kids won't be passed on to a new teacher the next year, so it forces parents to make sure their students really know the material. My mom didn’t go easy on us – if I deserved a B or C, that’s what I got, and we knew where we needed to work harder. I mostly got A’s (except in Algebra – oh, Algebra).
My mom took us on field trips, and if we had to run errands we would just take our work with us. If we knew we had something going on one day during the week, we would just “double up” on our schoolwork so we could take a day off. One advantage to homeschooling is that it is very flexible. We learned at our own paces, and it worked beautifully.
A couple years after we started my mom had us tested with a standardized test (I can’t for the life of me remember which one it was), and all three of us were either right on track or ahead in every subject. We were learning everything we needed to know and doing very well educationally at home.
Sidenote: My mom eventually took over an umbrella school and became certified to give that standardized test to other homeschool families. More on the umbrella school in the next post.
By the time I reached high school it became apparent that I was good at the sciences, and biology was my favorite subject. My mom had me teach my younger brother and sister their science lesson a few times, and it gave me an opportunity to use what I learned.
High school is where many homeschool families get intimidated and start sending their kids to public school, but in our house it was a natural transition, no different than any other grade. The material got harder, but if my mom didn’t know something she just learned with us. There are also many homeschooling co-ops out there where the moms will “trade-off” in certain subjects and give everyone a lesson in the subjects that they are comfortable with. We never participated in a co-op, but it’s an option.
When I turned sixteen I took the entrance exam at our local community college (I did well on it) and started taking classes. I got dual-credit for those classes, credit that counted for high school and college (a lot of homeschoolers take this route). This also allowed me to get ahead on my pre-requisites for the dental hygiene program I wanted to attend. When I was seventeen I took microbiology (which I loved), and my last semester was my “fun” semester, since I had all my requirements at that point. That semester I worked as a teaching assistant for micro at the college, a job that involved culturing bacteria, helping students with the lab projects, and pre-grading the student’s lab reports. I also took a theatre class.
I had all the requirements I needed to graduate from high school early, but I took classes at the college and had my official graduation on time. When I graduated high school I was just a couple classes shy of also having my Associate’s degree, and the only reason I didn’t just get my Associate’s degree right then was because I already had all my pre-requisites for hygiene college completed and was planning to start with that in the fall. I graduated, applied for hygiene school, and spent my last summer before college as a counselor at a local Christian camp.
I cover socialization and spiritual growth in the next posts in this series! You can read the rest of my homeschooling story here:
I think most of you know that Derek and I had troubles getting pregnant with Wyatt. It took 11 months before we were finally able to conceive.
Technically that leaves me one month shy of being officially considered “infertile”, but I would qualify myself as sub-fertile, and those 11 months were just as painful for me as they would have been if we’d had to wait one more month. It was hard. It hurt. I cried more times than I would care to admit.
I’ve written about our struggles, and some of the lessons I learned while we were waiting. It’s easy to see the purpose of it looking back. I learned to trust God when things don’t go my way. I learned to be content and rest in the knowledge that God knows what He’s doing. I learned that His plans are best. I learned to look for the purpose in trials, and I now have the gift of knowing a little bit about what other girls are going through who are struggling with infertility (which you can’t really appreciate until you’ve gone through it yourself).
In all my previous posts I’ve put a pretty brave face on it. And I know that all of the things I stated in those posts are true.
But when I think about the possibility of us having trouble conceiving our second baby? It still hurts. And it scares me. Because even though I have my first sweet baby and he will make the process so much easier to take the second time around? I still don’t want to go through that again.
I was talking with my mom about this subject the other day, and the words “Why me?” slipped out of my mouth. Why do I have to have fertility problems when so many people get pregnant so easily? Clearly I was having a dramatic moment.
Then my mom said something to me that I don’t think I’ll be forgetting. She gently asked me “Callie, why not you?”
She explained to me what she meant, and I had a miniature epiphany. Because she was right.
Why not me? I have a supportive husband, supportive family, sweet friends to talk with. I have resources. I have the finances to seek treatment if necessary. I have my relationship with the Lord. And I’m not one to let these trials go to waste – I’d rather use what the Lord has brought me through to encourage others.
If someone in the world had to have fertility problems, I’d say I’m an ideal candidate.
God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, and sometimes He lets us go through hard times because ultimately it will bring Him glory. With His help I can handle this again, if that’s what He gives me, and He will see me through.
Even if it’s just as hard as last time. Even if it takes longer or more to make it happen. Even if it never happens again at all.
He’s got this, and I’ve got this, and why not me?
Because come what may, He will be walking with us and I’ll be fine.
(2016: Please note that this is a series I wrote several years ago as a general overview of my experience as a homeschool student. If you have any questions about homeschooling and my homeschool experience, please comment below, and I would love to address them in future posts. Thanks for reading!)
I’ve been wanting to start this series on homeschooling, and honestly it’s leaving me overwhelmed. There is so much to say on the subject. I have a million posts written out in my head, and it’s intimidating me to just sit down and type them out. But if I don’t start it’s never going to get written, so please forgive me if this first post is less than stellar. I’m going to start out simply by writing about my own homeschooling experience.
I wasn’t always homeschooled. I went to public school first through third grade. My mom was actually considering homeschooling me in kindergarten, but she got intimidated and decided to send my siblings and me to public school.
Most of my public school memories revolve around me trying to do everything “right” in the classroom, and trying to not to be embarrassed either in front of or by the other kids. But kids are mean, and embarrassing things did happen at times. Those were low points in my educational existence, and I did what I could to be “cool” and not let it happen again.
My mom wanted to be involved in our education, even if she wasn’t teaching us, and she volunteered to help out at the school, so sometimes she would get to see us during the school day. I was never embarrassed by my mom being there. Everyone loved my mom, and I did too.
Being at the school allowed my mom to know more about what was going on with our education, and little things started to bother her.
For example, we had storytime in the school library, and she didn’t agree with some of the things in these seemingly harmless children’s books (it amazing how agendas are sneaked into books for kids).
Apparently I was also a little over-obsessed with the “rules”. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but my mom started noticing that during the school year I would get very serious and concerned with doing everything “right”. There were times when she stopped by my classroom, and I would barely glance at her, maybe give her a quick smile, but then I wouldn’t look at her again for fear of getting in trouble. During the summer I would usually get back to my happy, care-free self, but over the couple years I was in school she noticed that it took me longer and longer to get back to normal.
This is a good example of why it’s important to consider the individual child’s needs when looking at education choices – not every kid has this “personality change” problem because they go to public school, but I did.
Mostly her concerns were just a bunch of little things, but in combination with the fact that homeschooling was at the back of her mind anyway – well, it started to all add up.
From what I remember, the final straw was when she was looking over the agenda for the rest of the school year and noticed that they were planning on taking my class on a field trip to a Buddhist temple (which I still find incredible – you know they would never consider taking kids on a field trip to a church, but it’s okay to go to a Buddhist temple?).
As a Christian this was disturbing to her (it would be to me too!), and she and my dad decided she could teach us herself. Being at the school with us for those years gave her confidence that she could teach us what we needed to know, and my dad was totally on board.
So the year I started fourth grade, I woke up, got dressed, pretended to take the “bus” upstairs, and started my first day of school at home.
To read the rest of my homeschool story, check out these posts:
Disclaimer: I feel the need to include this, because I know many of you are teachers. I am not a fan of the public school system, and I plan to homeschool my own kids - which is part of the reason I have written out my story, to remind myself of where I came. However, I do think the majority of teachers in the public school system do the best they can, and I’m sure each of you reading who might teach in public school are amazing at your jobs! So please keep that in mind as you read.
I tossed around several ideas for Wyatt’s first birthday party theme, but the second that the thought of a cowboy theme came up, I knew that was what I wanted to do. Here are some pictures of the invitations, decorations, and food for Wyatt’s First Birthday Round-Up!
Invitations: I made them myself with a blank card set and my scrapbooking software.
1. I ordered a reprint of a 1950’s children’s book to use as a guestbook – guests wrote Wyatt a birthday message on the inside.
2. I made “Cowboy” Coffee Cupcakes and Root Beer Float Cupcakes, and I baked them in mason jars – I made the tags and tied them to the jars with raffia.
3. I made the “Happy Birthday” banner with burlap and cowboy fabric, then stenciled the letters onto it.
5. Ordered the birthday cake from King Soopers.
6. Root Beer Float station.
7. Monthly picture banner – I used string and mini clothespins to hang up Wyatt’s monthly pictures. It was a great way for everyone to see how much he’s grown during his first year.
8. We served coffee, and I made the sign that says “Coffee – strong enough to float a horseshoe.” Derek had all my signs and tags laminated for me.
9. Wyatt’s highchair, with a sign that says “This seat is reserved for the Birthday Cowboy, Wyatt!”
10. Guest book station, and I also put out a stuffed bear that Derek bought for me while I was in labor. I had a picture of Wyatt as a newborn with the bear that I displayed for comparison. He was barely bigger than that teddy bear!
11. Chili and cornbread for dinner.
12. Birthday Boy shirt from Target (on clearance last summer).
13. Tied the balloons up with thread – so much better than trying to use tape!
The links are either to recipes, or to some of the ideas that we modified or used for our party.
Overall, I’m really happy with the way everything turned out – I gathered everything gradually over the last six months, so it didn’t hurt my wallet much; I had a lot of fun making the banners and signs and putting everything together; the mason jars, rafia, and twine I’ll use for other projects in the future, so the extra won’t go to waste; and the decorations aren’t specific to a first birthday, so I can keep all the decorations and do another cowboy-themed party a few years down the road!
Blog posts are actually what got me started on thinking about cloth diapering. Honestly, I had never even considered it before, but shortly after I had Wyatt it seemed like I was hearing about cloth diapers somewhere every week! There were a lot of posts from fellow bloggers that I found helpful, and I starred them at the time thinking I might use cloth on our next child.
Then I had a little panic attack about how much money we were wasting on disposables, and I decided to give it a go. I was glad I had all those posts starred, because they were great to refer back to.
So this is a list of the posts that I read way back then and some that I’ve found since that I have found helpful. There are probably more that I’m forgetting, but these were the ones that I starred.
Ashley wrote a great series on cloth diapers:
- How And Why We Chose Cloth
- Brands And Styles
- Accessories And Wipes
- Caring For Our Diapers
- Out And About
Leanna wrote a post on cloth diapering which is what got me to thinking about it in the first place.
Jenene wrote a two-part series, and I bought some of our diapers based on recommendations from her.
Bridget wrote a very informative post, and her post made the washing process sound really simple.
Rachel wrote a post on the products and routine she uses as well.
Chloe wrote a post on cloth diapering, and she uses some diapers that I haven’t heard of before. I might give them a try after reading her post.
Lauren wrote a post that included a lot of great resources (if you’re interested in further reading) and she wrote a post with her thoughts on how cloth diapering has worked for her family.
And finally, Brittany wrote a post recently that I thought was helpful as well.
And that’s it, so if you are considering cloth diapering, definitely check these posts out!
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